Sherlock Holmes might as well have said, “It’s binary, my dear Watson,” instead of “It’s elementary.” We are immersed in a world of dichotomies comprising binary categories, such as true or false, ...

Gaskell and the Brontës had given me two opposing visions of northern England, but the reality defies that simple split. Gaskell’s sooty towns existed within a broader pastoral landscape, just as the ...